Paranoia and Privacy

[cantdog]

This seems to be the everyday life equivalent of the spyware online-- those innocuous little tags in clothes and books. Here's the link:

RFID tag zapper

The pair plan to publish the instructions for build online, "so that everyone can build an own RFID-Zapper".

"We have to expect to be surrounded by RFID-Tags almost everywhere within the near future, and they will serve many different purposes," write Tim and Chris online.

"The benefits and risks of this technology and its use are already being discussed.

"However, there will be atempts to use RFID-Tags to establish constant surveiliance and to further threaten and compromise the privacy of customers (and citizens and even non-citizens, when [governments] start to use RFID-Tags like the German [government] already did).

"To defend yourself against such measures, you might want a small, simple and relatively appealing gadget to permanently deactivate RFID-Tags around you, e.g., to deactivate RFID-Tags in recently bought clothes or books without damaging those [items]."

 

[Guest]

Well, cant, first I was going to say that the answer would be to wear a triangle of tinfoil on your head. You know, confuses their sensor rays.

But could this actually be true? There could actually be monitoring in this fashion?

I haven't had any coffee. I'll be back in a bit.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

But could this actually be true? There could actually be monitoring in this fashion?

The German government is very interested in monitoring your fashion.

 

[Guest]

The German government is very interested in monitoring your fashion.

They don't put those tags on crotchless panties, do they?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

They don't put those tags on crotchless panties, do they?

If they didn't tag crotchless panties, of all things, what would be the point of monitoring at all?

 

[Nakod Apa]

Rfid tags

Yup, it's coming. There have been several worried articles about it here in the UK. One more thing to go alongside road pricing cameras that can track where you are and have been, ID cards, location by mobile phone,and bio-metric passports.

There has even been a "serious" suggestionthat baies should be chipped at birth with a micro-chip the way we do for pets.

1984 is just a trifle late, but it'scoming.

 

[cantdog]

I know. Honey, disconnect the 'phone, I'm back in the USSR...

The details are in the link, but none on that tantalizing little bit "like the German government already did." The article describes the things as a chip with antenna, so I suppose a chip with antenna could do some passive monitoring, if someone went to the trouble of setting up some active devices to read them with.

So I imagine it doesn't mean to imply that the tags alone do the trick. There are barcode nametags that people use in the workplace which let them pass doors; those log where the tag has been with a little chip, but it is still the powered device in the doors themselves which actually does the work. I bet a google of "RFID tag" would take one to the discussions of the technology.

The technology is a bit beside the point. It's the idea of evolving a network of telltales to track movement, or track consumer preference, in a general way. Deployment of a system from, say, Borders Books, which essentially tags every customer like a biologist tagging salmon in the fishway-- how does this make you feel? Do you find it incompatible with liberty?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

This is all so scary. Imagine, ID Cards! That is a card that says your name! God damn it! How are we ever going to escape those. Bio-metric passports! Those are trickier, as I am sure they require a special drawer to be stashed in-between overseas trips. And location by mobile phone! I tell you, if it weren't for the fact that my phone has an off-button, I'd be worried, if it weren't for the fact that if I have a mobile phone in the first place it's because I want to be located.

Somewhere in Germany there is a government-controlled supercomputer keeping track in real time of the locations of all my crotchless panties' tags. Cross-reference that with the tags of the books I bought and they have my whole life history!

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Deployment of a system from, say, Borders Books, which essentially tags every customer like a biologist tagging salmon in the fishway-- how does this make you feel? Do you find it incompatible with liberty?

To tell the truth, I find it more incompatible with fully-working central nervous systems.

What would even be the point? Borders Books puts a tag on the book on Salmon Fishing that I buy as a gift to my friend's grandfather, and which I paid for with cash. What exactly are they tracking, again?

These things are pretty cool, though, and obviously serve the dark purpose of distracting us from the real ways through which liberty is attacked.

 

[Oblimo]

It's ironical, but RFID tags really are foiled by tin foil.

 

[Liar]

Um, aren't RFID tags also used for preventing theft in stores? I sense a new shoplifting fad coming on. Zap, put in bag, carry out.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Um, aren't RFID tags also used for preventing theft in stores? I sense a new shoplifting fad coming on.

Gosh, could that be the reason they tag books and crotchless panties, and not to know our life history? No, it can't be! The concept is too mind-boggling.

1984 is coming, except without the brains.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Must be the 1984 where everyone is high on cocaine.

 

[CharleyH]

Must be the 1984 where everyone is high on cocaine.

Ah ha! That was the year - I knew I'd figure it out some day.

Brilliant post by the way - lol.

 

[rgraham666]

If anyone wants to track my life they're welcome to it.

They'll be drilling a hole in their heads to let the boredom out very quickly.

 

[cloudy]

If anyone wants to track my life they're welcome to it.

They'd have problems tracking mine...I keep skipping all over the continent.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

If anyone wants to track my life they're welcome to it.

They're certainly not welcome to track mine. But it's not with RFID tags, ID Cards and bio-metric passports that they're suddenly going to start doing it.

 

[R. Richard]

Since the title is paranoia and privacy why don't we examine each item.

First, we look at privacy. An RFID tag works over a certain range. No Virginia, the government can't have a dirigible floating overhead to track each and every citizen as said citizen goes about his/her daily business. But wait! What if they extend the RANGE of the RFID tag? Right. They extend the range of the RFID tag and every RFID tag within the range responds to the transmitter. Then, all the government has to do is filter out the milion false replies and just keep the one they want. Yes Virgina, they can track the pair of crotchless panties you bought and suddenly broadcast the fact that you are wearing same while you walk downtown!

Second, we look at paranoia. No wait, I just covered paranoia!

Now, how about disabling an RFID tag. From what I have read, RFID tags are too expensive right now to put on items like crotchless panties. [If you want people to know you are wearing crotchless panties, you will just have to stop and scream. "I am wearing crotchless panties!" Inconvenient, but we must wait for technology to catch up.] However, let us assume that a store could detect an RFID tag that is inexpensive enough to put on crotchless panties. When you pay for the crotchless panties, the store will deactivate the RFID tag. [No Virginia, not to prevent the government dirigible from tracking you. You need to do something about the paranoia.] The store will deactivate the RFID tag on the crotchless panties so that they can detect the second and third pair of crotchless panties that you put on in the dressing room and are trying to shoplift! [Virginia, you really need to get counseling about the kleptomania thing.]

 

[cloudy]

It's ironical, but RFID tags really are foiled by tin foil.

yes, they can.

You have no idea the number of shoplifters I've caught that used tinfoil lined purses.

 

[Liar]

Must be the 1984 where everyone is high on cocaine.

Dang, sorry I missed that. Being seven years old at the time, I wasn't getting into the right parties.

 

[CharleyH]

They'd have problems tracking mine...I keep skipping all over the continent.

A continental whore? I like it!

 

[Oblimo]

You have no idea the number of shoplifters I've caught that used tinfoil lined purses.

Ah, but your store is probably using active RFID tags (battery powered tags), and(even more likely) the shoplifters are passing less than two feet from the reader. Oh, and the RFID tag probably isn't sending data, just squawking that it's there. In a situation like that, you need a much more reliable Faraday cage than tin-foil.

RFID has been used commercially since the 1920s. It's great for supply chain management, and stopping shoplifters, but it's not very good at Big Brothering, especially when people already voluntarily carry around cell phones that can do the job any RFID chip can do 100 times better.

 

[cloudy]

Ah, but your store is probably using active RFID tags (battery powered tags), and(even more likely) the shoplifters are passing less than two feet from the reader. Oh, and the RFID tag probably isn't sending data, just squawking that it's there. In a situation like that, you need a much more reliable Faraday cage than tin-foil.

RFID has been used commercially since the 1920s. It's great for supply chain management, and stopping shoplifters, but it's not very good at Big Brothering, especially when people already voluntarily carry around cell phones that can do the job any RFID chip can do 100 times better.

no, they're not battery powered...I've usually caught them before they've gone through the reader.

A continental whore? I like it!

 

[cantdog]

Exactly what I said. They are passive. It's the readers that do the work.

So someone would have to care enough to set up reading devices, for anything to happen.

The whole thing seems ridiculously far fetched, because if they cared enough, they wouldn't need tags, they'd simply surveil you.

So, what on earth did the German government do?